disclosures. The
excitement now became political. It was alleged that Masonry held itself
superior to the laws, and that Masons were more loyal to their Masonic
oaths than to their duty as citizens. Masonry, therefore, was held to be a
fatal foe to the government and to the country, which must be destroyed;
and in several town-meetings in Genesee and Monroe counties, in the spring
of 1827, Masons, as such, were excluded from office. At the next general
election the Antimasons nominated a separate ticket, and they carried the
counties of Genesee, Monroe, Livingston, Orleans, and Niagara against both
the great parties. A State organization followed, and in the election
of 1830 the Antimasonic candidate, Francis Granger, was adopted by the
National Republicans, and received one hundred and twenty thousand votes,
against one hundred and twenty-eight thousand for Mr. Throop. From a State
organization the Antimasons became a national party, and in 1832 nominated
William Wirt for the presidency. The Antimasonic electoral ticket was
adopted by the National Republicans, and the union became the Whig party,
which, in 1838, elected Mr. Seward Governor of New York, and in 1840
General Harrison President of the United States.

The spring of this triumphant political movement was hostility to a secret
society. Many of the most distinguished political names of Western New
York, including Millard Fillmore, William H. Seward, Thurlow Weed, Francis
Granger, James Wadsworth, George W. Patterson, were associated with it. And
as the larger portion of the Whig party was merged in the Republican, the
dominant party of to-day has a certain lineal descent from the feelings
aroused by the abduction of Morgan from the jail at Canandaigua. And as
his disappearance and the odium consequent upon it stigmatized Masonry, so
that it lay for a long time moribund, and although revived in later years,
cannot hope to regain its old importance, so the death of young Leggett is
likely to wound fatally the system of college secret societies.

The young man was undergoing initiation into a secret society. He was
blind-folded, and two companions were leading him along the edge of a cliff
over a deep ravine, when the earth gave way, or they slipped and fell from
the precipice, and Leggett was so injured that he died in two hours. There
was no allegation or suspicion of blame. There was, indeed, an attempt of
some enemies of the Cornell University--a hostility due either to supposed
conflict of interests or sectarian jealousy--to stigmatize the institution,
but it failed instantly and utterly. Indeed, General Leggett, of the
Patent-office in Washington, the father of the unfortunate youth, at once
wrote a very noble and touching letter to shield the university and the
companions of his son from blame or responsibility. He would not allow his
grief to keep him silent when a word could avert injustice, and his modest
magnanimity won for his sorrow the tender sympathy of all who read his
letter.

Every collegian knows that there is no secrecy whatever in what is called
a secret society. Everybody knows, not in particular, but in general,
that its object is really "good-fellowship," with the charm of mystery
added. Everybody knows--for the details of such societies in all countries
are essentially the same--that there are certain practical jokes of
initiation--tossings in blankets, layings in coffins, dippings in cold
water, stringent catechisms, moral exhortations, with darkness and sudden
light and mysterious voices from forms invisible, and then mystic signs
and clasps and mottoes, "the whole to conclude" with the best supper that
the treasury can afford. Literary brotherhood, philosophic fraternity,
intellectual emulation, these are the noble names by which the youth
deceive themselves and allure the Freshmen; but the real business of the
society is to keep the secret, and to get all the members possible from the
entering